A question: Would you like to call yourself a woman?
It is another year of Women's Day, and through the observation of these years, the sheep found that every time around Women's Day, the hot words on the screen are often "girls" and "goddesses".
From the Girls' Day banners in colleges and universities to the carnival-style marketing of the Goddess' Day brands, women have gradually become a word that no one mentions.
It's strange, where did the women go on Women's Day?
Disgusted "women"
There are many words to call women, and people of different ages have different names, but almost no one uses the word "women" in real life -
She is an older sister, a sister, a housewife, a full-time mother, a strong woman, an independent woman, an aunt, and a goddess.
She can be anyone, but she cannot be a woman.
In popular perception, women seem to have always been pejorative.
Children in schools do not call teachers women
Marvel, which is scheduled for 3.8, only wishes everyone a Happy Girls' Day
Boys don't take the initiative to bring up women's day memes
Even if you say it on your own initiative, you may be questioned by your girlfriend in turn
Women themselves reject the term "woman". Women's Day? It was the aunt's holiday
Sheep believe that in the vast majority of people's upbringing, the word woman has always been used by those around them to attack women.
Since their school days, some boys have used words such as "women" and "three-eight" to mock female classmates.
Even now that the boys are older, they still don't use "Happy Women's Day" to wish their female classmates, but instead those banners full of stares
What is a little fairy? It is the antithesis of "women" in the secular sense of the masses, representing youth, beauty, innocence and beauty.
But whenever we mention "women", the image that comes to mind is often the "yellow-faced woman" who bargains in the vegetable market, maneuvers between children and family, and cannot maintain the perfect state of women.
Women mean women. But why is such a neutral word gradually stigmatized into a derogatory term?
Who the hell is stigmatizing women?
In fact, if we follow historical tradition, there is a certain "reason" for "women" to be disliked.
Because in the long scrolls of history, the word "woman" is easily associated with other words: human woman, woman Tao, young woman, old woman.
Sheep use the example of "man" and "woman", the man is the one who cultivates the field, and the woman is the woman with a broom
Chinese characters are figurative characters, forms created based on real life experience, and the different ways of writing "women" and "men" also confirm the difference in their status in the family - women are confined to the family and have no actual financial resources, but exist in society as vassals of their husbands.
The inequality in the status of men and women has made "women" have a strong binding relationship with the family, and when we mention "women", we think of marriage, children, firewood, rice, oil and salt.
And the ancients actually strengthened this concept over and over again in literary creation, such as poems such as "the boss marries a merchant woman", "a woman weeps and goes to hide", "the lady is not jealous of the new makeup woman".
From the ancient poems of elementary school, we have actually deepened the concept of "woman" as "married woman" little by little.
And for us as children, getting married means being mature enough to get married and have children.
This stereotype continues to this day, and then it is influenced by the stereotype of "married housewife".
The working woman promoted after the founding of New China, this was originally a glorious title, but in today's economically developed and the Internet dominating people's lifestyle, it will also appear a little abrupt and rustic.
Because of the accumulation of impressions over time, our projection of "women" is far greater than that of "women" itself, and women no longer refer to women, but middle-aged "long-tongued women" women who ignore their personal image and only care about firewood, rice, oil and salt.
As a result, the public is reluctant to celebrate Women's Day, boys on campus are still mocking female classmates with "women", and working men in society still use marriage standards to examine women on Women's Day.
Honestly, it's magical.
Since when did we embrace the title of woman?
What are we repudiating when we dislike women?
So what does it really mean to be a woman?
In the Criminal Law of the People's Republic of China, it is defined as a minor girl under the age of 14 and a woman over the age of 14 (inclusive).
Female, means an unmarried woman; Women refer to married women, so women refer to women in general.
Professor Shen Yifei once mentioned in the video that a woman has the highest right in life when she is a girl, because she is in the highest period of gender dividend in the secular sense, because she has a young face, body, and a lot of opportunities for trial and error.
In other words, youth is a kind of capital for women, and "women" who have long been identified as the exclusive title of "middle-aged women" will of course be excluded.
This is a chain of discrimination within women and a manifestation of women's deep immersion in the culture of patriarchal narratives.
Our society has been perpetuating the "female dependent on the male" family structure for thousands of years, and the age of the man has never mattered, because what they need is the capital to start a family and the ability to support the family.
Even now, most people in China still have a very traditional view of men and women – for example, a forty-year-old woman is fatal in the blind date market because she is "old and decaying", but a man is forty-one flowers, because the older he gets, the more capital he accumulates. And this ageism itself is a hidden transfer of power: girls are more free in their choices than women.
Is it really the title "woman" that we dislike?
What we really hate is age, because it means the loss of youth and beauty, and it also means the loss of choice.
In the traditional patriarchal cultural structure, young women are more popular than middle-aged women, who are "gazed" because of their youth and beauty, and middle-aged women are "judged" because of old age and decay.
Be like this uncomfortable foul-smelling emoji
By not accepting the word "woman", women are essentially rejecting such an image concept.
To be honest, sheep dislike the concept of "Girls' Day" very much, and the only purpose of its existence is to divide the female group: young and mature, married and unmarried.
The existence of Girls' Day makes people's misunderstanding of "Women's Day" deeper. Of course, it is good to be able to maintain "innocent beauty and vitality", but these traits are also the focus of men's gaze on women in patriarchal culture. Don't forget, there is also a foul smelling meme that has gone viral among men between 37 Girls' Day and 38 Women: become a woman after one day.
From ancient times to the present, women have always existed as the "second gender": in the past, the goddess was called the worship of women's fertility value, and now it is called a goddess to extract the value of women's consumption.
Not to mention that the word woman itself refers to all women over the age of 14, even according to the traditional popular concept of the description of women, the sheep still want to say -
There is no shame in women getting older, and we don't need to be ashamed of it.
Instead of expecting much ideological change from men as vested interests in a patriarchal culture, the first step for women to change the status quo is to get rid of the influence of the patriarchal narrative.
If you don't accept your own growth, who can you count on to speak for you?
The three words of Women's Day are very simple to write, but behind them are the history of thousands of women's bloody and tearful struggles for their rights, and their cry for equal pay for equal work, the right to divorce, and the right to abortion.
At that time, women who cared about the title of the goddess queen, they wanted not a false crown, but real rights.
Women's Day commemorates women's attainment of "peace, bread and freedom," rather than objectifying themselves with words like "goddess."
In 2023, Women's Day really shouldn't continue to be stigmatized. Whether you want to call yourself "woman" or not, at least don't reject such a neutral term. Happy Women's Day to all fans: you have the right not to be stared at and to be yourself, not others.
Finally, Sheep would like to sincerely invite everyone to use the word "women" to create a short sentence -
This statement can be said to oneself, to other women, and even more to those who look down on "women"... For example
I am a woman, and as a lawyer, I win 90% of my cases;
May all sisters become women who are no longer afraid of aging and get rid of age anxiety.